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KCOP
KCOP-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 13, is a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated television station located in Los Angeles, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, as part of a duopoly with Fox owned-and-operated station KTTV (channel 11). The two stations share studio facilities at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles; KCOP's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson. History Early history (1948-1994) Channel 13 first signed on the air on September 17, 1948 as KMTR-TV and then later the call letters changed into KLAC-TV (standing for Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was originally co-owned with local radio station KMTR (now KLAC). Operating as an independent station early on, it began running some programming from the DuMont Television Network in 1949 after KTLA (channel 5) disaffiliated from the network after a one-year tenure. One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in Al Jarvis's Make-Believe Ballroom (later Hollywood on Television) from 1949 to 1952, and then her own sitcom, Life with Elizabeth from 1952 to 1956. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor/director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13, and Oscar Levant had his own show on the station from 1958 to 1960. The KMTR call letters are currently used by the NBC affiliate in Eugene, Oregon. That station is unrelated to KCOP-TV. On December 23, 1953, the Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV and changed its call letters to the current KCOP. A Bing Crosby-led group purchased the station in 1957. In 1959, the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13. NAFI/Chris-Craft would be channel 13's longest-tenured owner, running it for over 40 years. For most of its first 46 years on the air, channel 13 was a typical general entertainment independent station. It was usually the third or fourth highest-rated independent in Southern California, trading the #3 spot with KHJ-TV (channel 9, now KCAL-TV). The station carried Operation Prime Time programming at least in 1978. During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the Los Angeles home of Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as the Original Series), The Arsenio Hall Show and Baywatch. KCOP was the original Los Angeles home of the syndicated versions of Wheel of Fortune (its longtime announcer until his death in 2010, Charlie O'Donnell, was a former news anchor at KCOP) and Jeopardy!, both of which moved to KCBS-TV (channel 2) in 1989, and later to current home KABC-TV (channel 7) in 1992. The station tried airing movies six nights a week in 1992; however, it fared poorly. KCOP partnered with WWOR-TV and MCA TV Entertainment on a two night programming block, Hollywood Premiere Network starting in October 1990. KCOP carried the Prime Time Entertainment Network programming service from 1993 to 1995. KCOP carried Spelling Premiere Network at its launch in August 1994 on Thursday nights. UPN affiliation (1995-2006) In October 27, 1993, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Viacom's newly acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network. KCOP became the network's Los Angeles station, which debuted on January 16, 1995 (this made channel 13 a UPN owned-and-operated station through Chris-Craft's ownership of the network – later part-ownership once Viacom bought 50% of UPN from Chris-Craft in 1996). At the network's launch, KCOP served as UPN's West Coast "flagship" station. During the late 1990s, the station began carrying a large amount of younger leaning talk shows (such as The Ricki Lake Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Montel Williams Show), reality series, some sitcoms during the evening hours, and syndicated cartoons (such as Double Dragon) in the morning well as the popular anime series Sailor Moon. In 2000, Viacom bought Chris-Craft's 50% ownership interest in UPN; the deal effectively stripped KCOP of its status as one of the network's O&Os in the process (and making UPN the first major broadcast network to not have an O&O in the Los Angeles market, unless one counts KTLA's designation as an O&O by the Federal Communications Commission – ironically due to that station's founding owner Paramount's relations with DuMont – in the early 1950s after having already disaffiliated from the network). On August 12, 2000, Chris-Craft sold its UPN stations to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation for $5.5 billion; a deal that was finalized on July 31, 2001, creating a duopoly with Fox O&O KTTV. Upon being sold to Fox, the Fox Kids weekday block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be discontinued nationwide in January 2002. Soon after, the station ran an hour-long morning cartoon block (supplied by DIC Entertainment), but dropped cartoons entirely in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays; like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with informercials. In a separate transaction from its purchase of UPN, Viacom purchased KCOP's rival, KCAL-TV, from Young Broadcasting on June 1, 2002. Rumors persisted that UPN would move to the higher-rated KCAL, reverting KCOP to independent station status. However, Viacom decided to continue operating KCAL as an independent, as Fox renewed affiliation agreements for its UPN-affiliated stations for four years, keeping the network's programming on KCOP. With Fox's acquisition of KCOP, the station abandoned its longtime Hollywood studios at 915 North La Brea Avenue (once home to the classic Barry & Enright-produced game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough, and short-lived B&E entry Play the Percentages) with KCOP's news and technical operations being moved into KTTV's facilities at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles in 2003. The La Brea Avenue studio was put up for sale, with Fox electing to keep the facility, remodeling it to house the first two seasons of the reality series Hell's Kitchen. It was eventually abandoned with fixtures in place, and became a haven for squatters who were evicted by police in May 2009. The studio was eventually torn down, and currently the site is now a Sprouts store, with a large apartment complex that opened November 2015. MyNetworkTV affiliation (2006-present) On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down UPN and The WB and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. KTLA, which had been the market's WB affiliate since the network's January 1995 launch, became The CW's Los Angeles affiliate as part of a 10-year affiliation deal between the new network and KTLA's owner, Tribune Broadcasting. The CW's initial affiliate list did not include any of Fox's UPN stations, but even without the Tribune affiliation deal, it is unlikely that KCOP would have been picked over KTLA as The CW's management was on record as preferring The WB and UPN's "strongest" affiliates – KTLA had led KCOP in the ratings dating back to when they were both independent stations. The day after the announcement of The CW's pending launch, on January 25, 2006, Fox dropped all network references from its UPN stations' on-air branding, and stopped promoting UPN's programs altogether. Accordingly, KCOP changed its branding from "UPN 13" to "Channel 13", and amended the station's 2002 logo to omit the UPN logo and just feature the boxed "13". On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would have KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations (plus an independent station in Dallas–Fort Worth) serve as the nuclei. UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some of the network's affiliates that switched to MyNetworkTV (which commenced operations on September 5, 2006) aired the final two weeks of UPN programs outside of its recommended primetime slot, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006. In September 2006, the station began identifying itself as "MyNetworkTV, Channel 13"; the branding changed again in May 2007, simplified to "My13 Los Angeles". Move of MyNetworkTV programming to late night As of September 14, 2015, the station began airing other programming in MyNetworkTV's traditional 8 p.m.-10 p.m. timeslot, including TMZ Live and Hollywood Today Live; MyNetworkTV's schedule is now carried out of primetime in late night from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on weeknights. This makes KCOP the most high-profile station carrying MyNetworkTV to move it out of primetime, along with the first Fox-owned station to do so (Gary, Indiana (in the Chicago media market)-licensed WPWR-TV moved MyNetworkTV programming to 10 p.m.-midnight on September 1, 2016 after assuming that market's The CW affiliation from Tribune-owned WGN-TV, taking The CW as its primary affiliation; WPWR would later move MyNetworkTV programming to 9:00 to 11:00 PM Central Time). At some point in time, KCOP moved MNTV back to the 8-10pm slot. Category:MyNetworkTV Affiliates Category:Channel 13 Category:1948 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1948 Category:Los Angeles Category:California Category:Fox Television Stations Category:VHF Category:Former independent stations Category:Former DuMont Affiliates Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:Former PTEN affiliates Category:Former UPN affiliates Category:MyNetworkTV California Category:1954 Category:Light TV Affiliates Category:Buzzr affiliated stations Category:Movies! Affiliates Category:Heroes & Icons affiliates stations Category:Former Bounce TV Affiliates